Scientology: Refunds and Repayments of Monies on Account

1992: In its third series of responses to the IRS in support of its 1023 application for 501 (c)3 tax exemption, the Church of Scientology complained to the IRS that is was misunderstood, vilified, and not being treated fairly. In the paragraph below, the Church complains to the IRS that refund requests from its members are actually a spiritual cross-check that Dianetics and Scientology have not been properly applied:

Here we see Hubbardian logic at work: Scientology can do no wrong; only a misapplication of Dianetics and Scientology would cause a person to ask for a refund. This mindset is crucial in understanding the Church of Scientology and money.

The RTC logo embodies the term “Standard Tech” to reinforce the notion that RTC’s job is to ensure the standard delivery and ecclesiastical purity of Scientology.

By Scientology logic, then, a Scientologist asking for a refund or repayment indicates an “Out Tech” or “Out Ethics” situation.

In other words, the Church of Scientology believes that some terrible mistake has occurred, perhaps an auditor made a mistake, or something else caused a Scientologist to ask for a refund. Alternately, after talking to a person requesting a refund, the Church may elect to take the view that the person has overts or withholds or some hidden crime against the Church. From Scientology’s perspective, a refund or repayment request is a deadly serious matter. And to be blunt, the Church simply does not want to give refunds.

Given the Church of Scientology’s prejudicial view of people who ask for their money back, here is exactly what the Church of Scientology told the IRS in 1992 about its refund policy:

The Church made it sound so simple: The “unhappy few” would be given refunds or repayments and permanently expelled from the Church so that the “very happy” could continue on in Scientology without being enturbulated by the unhappy few.

In this essay we are concerned with repayments, i.e. the return of monies on account that have not been used. One would think these unused monies should be given back to the person who paid them; nevertheless the Church of Scientology makes every effort possible to keep these unused monies.

The Church has always solicited and encouraged its members to make advanced payments for future services. The Church pitches this as a way for its members to “open a flow” and make payments for its super-expensive services. These advanced payments are called “money on account.” However, the term “money on account” is so extraordinarily misleading as to be essentially meaningless. The moment any Scientologist puts “money on account” that money is treated as a donation and becomes Church property.

Let us create a hypothetical Scientologist named Linda who wants to do the L’s. The three L’s cost about $100,000. Linda, who is a chiropractor, works with her FSM and decides to “put $5000 on account” at Flag each month towards her L’s. After one year and eight months, Linda has $100,000 on account. She can now go to Flag and get her L’s.

But let us suppose that Linda has become disaffected during that one year and eight months. She no longer wants to be a Scientologist. She has read the internet; been ordered to disconnect from a few family members and friends who were declared SP’s; has lost income because she was ordered to not have SP’s as patients; and has been treated harshly in an Ethics cycle. Linda decides she no longer wants to be in the Church and asks for a repayment of her $100,000 money on account.

What happens next with Linda?

What the Church told the IRS: The Church told the IRS that it has an internal refund process in place. Among other things, the Church told the IRS about its CVB (Claims Verification Board) account:

The Church told the IRS that it handles refunds on an “abandoned or met” basis. The goal of the Church, therefore, is to get Scientologist to legally abandon, in writing, their repayment claim.

I can make this statement based upon the Church’s consistent track record of refusing to make repayments. This has been discussed and documented online for years by countless Scientologists. Some repayments do get made, but these often happen only after the person seeking a refund hires a lawyer.

Moreover, for the Church to say that the CVB must pass on the “validity” of a claim for a repayment is disturbing. What Sea Org members on the Claims Verification Board are going to breezily approve any repayment? Compounding this matter is Scientology’s byzantine finance policy in which the lion’s share of the money collected by the Orgs each week “moves uplines” immediately. This leaves the Orgs with very little money. According to the former Sea Org members I have interviewed, most Orgs simply do not have the cash reserves to make a big repayment — and in bad weeks some Orgs don’t even have enough money to pay Sea Org.

In order to get a repayment, then, Linda must complete the Claims Verification Board (CVB) routing form. This unnecessarily complicated form requires Linda to have personal meetings with various Church functionaries in order to get them to sign off on the routing form. The job of these Church functionaries is to get Linda to abandon, in writing, her request for a repayment.

One strategy the Church uses is to convince Linda, and others asking for repayments, to donate for expensive sec checking or other auditing procedures to “handle” their upsets with the Church. These cycles can easily eat up $25,000 – $50,000 or more of “money on account.”

Scientology is quick and eager to grab money from people. However,when it comes to refunds the Church becomes an obnoxious, bureaucratic, sandbagging, fine print deadbeat. Some people who want refunds have to get an attorney after the Church denies their refund request. The Church of Scientology was simply not designed to give refunds with any shred of dignity or grace.

Once a Scientologist has been declared an SP, they are not allowed to step foot onto Church premises to complete the CVB routing form. Hence, the ultimate Catch-22: You must physically go into a Scientology Org to complete your CVB form as a condition of the Church even considering your request to get your “money on account” repaid to you.

However, if you are an SP then you are not allowed to physically step foot onto Church property to complete your CVB routing form.

Game over.

The Church has been making this dishonest Catch-22 quite clear in written responses to Scientologists asking for repayments; this as we saw in a recent letter from HCO Flag that was posted online:

This Catch-22 that a declared SP cannot take the required steps to get their money back is, according to L. Ron Hubbard’s own words, “out exchange” and “ripoff.” Mr. Hubbard himself defined a criminal as a person who wants something for nothing:

“First consider a group which takes in money but does not deliver anything in exchange. This is called rip-off. It is the ‘exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.” – L. Ron Hubbard, HCO PL 10 Sep 82 – Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay.

Hence, in refusing to make repayments of unused monies to declared SP’s, the Church of Scientology is in the “’exchange’ condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.”

The Church itself has become a suppressive group whose purpose is to ripoff, or steal, monies it has not earned. The Church of Scientology has displayed its hostility, contempt, and naked greed in the boilerplate language it routinely uses in letters it sends to parishioners denying repayment requests:

This is what the Church is saying in 2015: We don’t have a duty or obligation to return any contribution. There is no law in America requiring us to do so.

This is what the Church told the IRS in 1992:

In addition to violating its own doctrine of exchange, the Church of Scientology is lying; it told the IRS about that its refund policy was “exceedingly fair” when it is quite clear to see that the Church’s refund policy is dishonest, misleading, cumbersome, and perhaps even illegal.

In the leaked Final Draft Closing Agreement between the IRS and the Church of Scientology, the IRS stated that the Church’s tax exemption could be reopened in the event of fraud, malfeasance, or misrepresentation of material fact:

Certainly this is one area where former Scientologists and critics can address with the IRS and members of the US Congress. If you are seeking a repayment from the Church for “monies on account” and are being ignored or denied – and it seems to be standard Church practice to impede, refuse, and generally delay in hopes people will abandon their repayment requests – then complain to the IRS in writing. The complaint process was covered here at the Scientology Money Project. The IRS wants to hear it:

Finally, one important fact to know: David Miscavige’s attorney Monique Yingling is a Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) Special Director. As a CST Special Director, Yingling’s “prime directive” as a tax attorney is to ensure that the Church of Scientology International (CSI) does not act in any way whatsoever to risk its tax exemption.

Arguably the chief architect of Scientology’s tax exemption, Yingling wrote, or caused to be written, most of the 1023 application to the IRS in support of the Church’s bid for tax exemption. Yingling knows there is a contradiction between what the Church represented to the IRS in 1992 and what it is now practicing.

Therefore, Scientologists seeking repayments would do well to write to Monique Yingling in her capacity as a CST Special Director to express your concerns that CSI is risking its tax exemption by refusing repayments. David Miscavige should be copied as well as he licenses Scientology’s technology to CSI. The addresses:

“419 Larchmont, #162, Los Angeles, CA 90004” is a neighborhood mailbox store. The Church of Spiritual Technology, the mother shell corporation and owner of the materials and trademarks of the Church of Scientology uses a neighborhood mail box store to obfuscate its physical location at “The Old Squirrel Inn” just off the “Rim of the World” highway in Crestline California. Twice daily, a courier makes the 130 mile round trip from Crestline to PAC base and area to deliver and pick up communications for the mother corporation.

I love its introduction of the “SP” the person who cannot be helped. The SP is so spiritually degraded that nothing can touch their horrible condition. In this way, when people are not helped by Scientology, the Tech which works 100% of the time when applied standardly (hehe), the people who are not helped can simply be reclassified as evil and un-helpable.

When a Scientologist dies with monies on account the Church of Scientology keeps the money. If the heirs ask for the money returned they get a letter from Scientology Legal stating that the monies were nonrefundable donations and that the Church has no legal obligation to return them. This is criminal fraud under the color of religion and it is how Scientology works.

Well Cult of Sci., the Cat Escaped your bag months ago,no make that years ago,as it pertains to tax evasion and lying about same. This concealment and capture of monies “ on acct “ and no refunding to heirs if one drops that body, it is all within the scrambled doctrine of Scientology. I translate as, “ Hey all you suckers! Come on in for auditing or training or why not both, really raise that bar and join Sea Org The most ethical group ever created..! Lest one forgets All of you body, mind & spirit becomes Our Property & Any-insubordination will get one on a Fast Track to RPF, & beyond.

In 1974 when I joined Asho Fdn Sea Org I donated around $30,000 on account to Asho F for my processing & training. Not much today but enough back then. I honestly thought by doing so I could fill in the huge empty space of no experience beyond DMSMH when I joined. I really wanted to move up quickly and understand Ron & my SO calling, Lol.

However the very next day & the three years after,I found out not only was I not receiving auditing from a trained competent terminal, Ha! that term is so creepy now, not only did that not happen until Grade 4 & XDN etc, but I was ordered to get to Power and complete it before I could use an EMeter. To this day I do not compute this. What was the policy on EMeters & Ms. Ann? Perhaps the policies that were and the people that enforced “ ethics “ as part of this, did not want me to cause their new Mark whatever they were Meters to go berserk!

So basically whenever there was a break period for Asho D & Fdn which meant volleyball matches on the loading dock, I would be inundated with Sea Orgers wanting me to loan them money for their training & processing. I quickly figured out “ monies on account “ meant I surrendered my donation to The Sea Org so that Scientology could use it however they chose. And I was hounded to deliver more cash from my late Dad well into 1977-1978.

This is another on-going ruse that the IAS & RTC fit into perfectly. Thank you so much Jeffrey A 💛💛💛

I left my comment & away it walked. Trying again. Thank you Jeffrey A. Scientology has been throwing their weight around in gold bars for years. Their love of money and the illegal ways they obtain & sanitize it, is central to their delusional convoluted thinking.
The term “ monies on account “ I do have personal experience with. When I joined The Sea Org Asho Fdn in 1974, I knew there was a huge hole in my understanding of Ron and Policy etc as my only prior experience was DMSMH. I wanted to be able to get up to speed quickly so I could help Ron & with my place on the SO Team,reach all their goals. I was so Ron- dazzled in the beginning.

So I donated $30,000 or so to Asho F for my training & processing thinking this would all help me learn faster and progress up the Bridge. Not alot today but enough then. Imagine my surprise as the weeks unfolded the auditors I had until Grade 4 & XDN well they were as green as I was. I also learned until I had done Power I was not to use an EMeter.. all these years later I still have no answer for that order. The only thing I can come up with was that future auditors did not want Ms Ann blowing their new Mark whatever it was EMeters out. Or dealing with” a I have no pictures to see PC “which is what was actually happening to me.

I kept waiting to be given training & auditing regularly.However when there was a break moment, Asho F & D would play volleyball matches on the loading dock @ Temple St. During those games I was inundated with SOers from Day & Fdn wanting me to loan them money right then & there for auditing & training. This went on until I left in 1978. Even from 1977- 1978 I was constantly regged to get more money from my late Dad so I could keep financing everyone but me. And told I was going to be reported on for being Out Ethics by not jumping up & down at the prospect of regging my Dad for more.

The money trail of the Cult of Scientology is like a gigantic maze of turns & twists. May the rusted chains holding that money trail for the cult, crumble into dust & may all the those hurt in anyway because of Scientology Ron/ miscavige or in any other way by miscavige find peace in the Light of Freedom & dance with the releases of fear. Scientology thrives on cruelty, negativity and great sleight of hand.

Love & Support to Jeffrey A, Jeff W & John P and all those who know what is right and what is very very wrong about Scientology’s Criminal Conduct. They will always divert attention from their prize, piles of money, and till the bitter end and it will be for Scientology,defend their sorry asses 24/7. In the end Scientology will be dust. I may not be here to see it but wherever & whoever I am, I will KNOW it! Love to All.💛💛💛

Let’s keep in mind; LRH said “Immediate Refund upon request.” that’s the policy and DM was never authorized to change it. KSW. Anyone denying anyone at the CoS their refund will never go up the Bridge due to their outethics action. My question is; What Scientologist would be dumb enough or naive enough to comply with David ,The Failed Class 5 Auditor,Miscavige ?? Ans; ALL OF THEM.